Wednesday, December 13, 2017

When other
brains were discovering nuclear energy and launching revolutionary mobile money
transfer systems in Kenya, I was thinking about sex.

“Welcome home,
dear. You are tense, and look tired,” Lilibeth observes. “Would you like a
massage?”

“Not now, Lily,”
I say as I lean in for a kiss.

“Of course,
sir,” she replies, and her status light turns from bright green to amber. She
goes to the kitchen and leaves me to my machines, the screen in front of me
showing the images of the son I never showed how to be a man, and a daughter I
never protected from the world.

The emptiness
in my heart is like a tornado, the numbness pounds my brain, and tears cloud my
eyes. The shear nothingness takes hold of my soul and threatens to engulf me
entirely.

One day I might
grieve for my wife, but first I would have to be convinced that I meant
anything to her. But for now I hold every memory of her back. Instead, I grief
for my heart and the pain she caused me, a hurt that snowballs as memories from
our failed marriage ambushes me.

“Supper is
served, sir,” Lilibeth tells me.

I come back to
earth and devour the scrumptious meal. The TV screen mounted high on the wall
in the dining room shows me what awaits me after supper, whetting my appetite.

I wish she could eat.

I clear the
table after eating, and let the machine do the washing.

Lilibeth is
waiting in the bathroom, the bathtub full to the brim.

Her hands are
like rubber on my back, every pore of my body coalescing into fluidness. Faint
and far away, I hear: “God, you’re so beautiful. I love your body.”

“Trust me,” she
says. When she leads to the canopied four-poster bed and pushes me down, I go
into a dream.

This is where she gets real wet, incredibly wet, for me. I issue the command ultrasonically and close my eyes for the ride.

Hours later,
cuddled together like teenagers, I whisper, “I love you, Lily. Love you to
bits.”

And she, “Feelings
are like temperatures: attraction is warm, curiosity is warmer, and anger is
boiling. Hate can torch, but it can also freeze. Love ... well, that’s a
temperature best left under neutral.”

***

Lilibeth is my
creation. I created her, from silicon. I customized her according to the traits
I found appealing, with pre-programmed personalities like shyness, adventurous,
wild, and others that I wanted. Put it blatantly: according to my idea of an ideal
wife. She likes what I like, dislikes what I dislike. She has moods just like a
real woman. She can be sleepy, conversational, or she can ‘be in the mood’!

And that’s how
my company, Maisha Raha Ltd., came to be.

“If a woman (sic) can have a vibrator, why can’t men have a sex robot?” I asked
one of the moral police crusaders during a live TV interview.

“Because that’s
not the plan God had for man,” replied my opponent, a prosperity Gospel pastor.

“There are many
disturbing aspects to the rise of sex robots,” another one interjected. “Replacement
of real, human relationships, for one; but that’s not why I’m against them.
They portray subservient female traits, the rapey connotations of making a move
on them, are the most concerning.Women rights are under threat across the globe, men have moved from ‘grabbing
them by the pussy’, and now sex robots? It is women under attack here.”

Jeez, feminists will never lack feminist shit to say.

“That’s the
same reason my marriage failed,” I said. “Women always thinking that men force
themselves on them. Till such time women realize that the pashmina that holds
marriage together, according to men, is sex, as men have known that women need
emotional connection, marriages will always fail. And it has nothing to do with
subservience …”

“I disagree
with you,” the pastor said. “If you base your marriage on bodily desires it
will fail.”

“Sex is a powerful
union between two souls, a deeply spiritual act that bonds two people who are
committed to each other. It builds strong relationships, keeps our souls
healthy, and our self-esteem high. That’s what I yearned for from my wife, but
she didn’t give it to me,” I said.

“Let’s be
logical here,” I continued. “Even in the Bible it is written that it is better
to marry than to burn with passion. See, if Jesus didn’t think sex is important
He wouldn’t have had a lover …”

“Blasphemy!”
screamed the pastor.

When the conniption
cooled down, I continued, “I agree that these sex robots are not a mere fetish
or just another sex toy. Their emergence and increasing use points to something
darker and deeper within our culture, a retreat from the ideal of marriage and
the real reasons why a woman and a man decide to live together. Blame it all on
the wave of feminism and the so-called ‘women empowerment and rights’ that has
ravaged the world ...”

“Yes, times are
changing, but a dreadful sign of the doom looming for the era we are living in.
And many people aren’t weird or offensive until the free market gives them the
permission to be so. Gilbert, you were not like this before the evil idea of
satisfying your bodily desires consumed you, saw a ‘business’ opportunity, and
began selling your sinful products to your ‘sophisticated’ clientele to drag
them with you to hell,” the pastor was not stopping his pontificating.

Well, what I
did not say then was that despite their increasing popularity, thanks to my
advertising, sex robots were alien to consumer culture and many men would
rather contract STIs from prostitutes than buy my geloms.

Maisha Raha
aims to create sex robots as much of a physical likeness to actual women but
with more intelligence (albeit artificial) as technologically possible. My bots
feel human to the touch, they mimic the movement of a real body, get real wet, and
can talk to you nicely than women nowadays. The good thing is that they cannot
break up with you, or walk out; no independence or anything that may disrupt
the fantasy of total servitude.

Monday, November 13, 2017

Vincent de Paul is an author, editor and founder of Mystery Publishers- a self-publishing platform with editors from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

He spoke to Nation.co.ke about his journey:

What was your inspiration to become an author?
I developed an interest in writing while in high school. I was inspired by the urge to right the society and revoke vices through my writing thus I participated in national writing competitions. I wrote the article titled “Stop Child Labour, School is the Best Place to Work” for a competition that was organised by Centre for Law and Research International (CLARION) in 2003 and was among the top five winners. Ever since then, I have not looked back.

How long did it take before you published your first book and what were your biggest challenges as an aspiring writer?
From the time I finished the draft of my first book in 2004 while still in high school, I spent seven years before I published it, First Words, in 2011 which is a collection of poetry. The book had won the 13th Nairobi International Book Fair Literary Awards in 2010, which were organized by the National Book Development Council of Kenya.
The biggest challenge was to get a publisher to publish the book in Kenya.

I knocked doors of all main stream publishers in Kenya but they rejected the manuscript—they said Kenyans don’t read poetry and that they wanted a book they could sell to schools.

A year later, I gave up on looking for a publisher and a Facebook friend from the USA introduced me to self-publishing.

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Most soldiers,
while in the battlefield, fantasize of palm-fringed beaches, sex, and alcohol
when, and if, they get back home; not necessarily in that order. They watch
poor quality porn on their phones to remind them of what they are missing, and
how the female body looks like. That’s most soldiers, but I am not most
soldiers. All I think of is murdering my fiancée.

I have not
slept. Most nights I don’t. I am thinking of tomorrow when I leave Somalia. AMISOM
13 is over. I am in the last batch of my unit to leave. Others went back piecemeal
since 8th Battalion the Kenya Rifles arrived.

From my sentry
post I stare at the wide panoply of stars and luminous darkness that rules the
night. A loud shrill of the muezzin’s call for fajr pierces the pre-dawn silence.

It is the
dreaded hour. Al-Shabaab come at this time. Reports received yesterday
indicated that the dastard bastards were planning to attack a KDF camp in
Sector Central, none in particular. We are used to the fake reports by now.
Since we took over a year ago, they were planning to attack a KDF camp.

The guy who is
supposed to relieve me wakes up and joins me.

“How is it,” he
asks. “Anything suspicious?”

“No,” I say.
“These intelligence guys know nothing. They send us reports to keep us on toes.
They just want to stay relevant.”

“Why don’t you
sleep?”

“Sitaki kushikwa kwa mkono al-Shabaab wakija,” I say. “Did you see the photos
of those soldiers who were caught sleeping in Elade and Kolbiyo?”

“But you don’t
even sleep during the day like most of us.”

“Well, I’m not
most of you.”

“You’re a
strange man, Patoo. I wish I had your endurance.”

We sit in silence,
then he says, “What would you do when you get back to Kenya?”

I feel like God
is sending an angel to warn me, but I tell him what I expect would happen: “I
heard we will be granted block-leave. I will go to build that house I have wanted
to build in the plot I bought before we came here.”

“Afadhali wewe uko na plot,” he
says. “I’m still paying my sisters’ school fees. I don’t know when I’d be able
to acquire my property.”

At the mention
of the word ‘fees’ my stomach muscles go taut. I don’t want to comment on it; I
told my father to educate his children.

“Do you think we should leave Somalia?” he asks when
he senses my disinterest in private life talk.

“If we did not leave after the Elade attack,
we will never leave Somalia,” I say.
I was in training then, and when I saw the photos of the attack online, I almost
ran away from the recruit training school.

I don’t tell
him that I think the system is fucked-up, that nothing matters to me anymore,
and that I want him to shut the hell up.

I spend the day
packing. Of importance is the belted ammo of my light machine gun. I make sure
I get enough, anything can happen along the way. Even after thirteen years in
Somalia we still travel by road when direct flights from Mogadishu to Nairobi
resumed eight years ago. Most Kenya Defence Forces bases in Somalia have
airstrips, military aircrafts could airlift us, but they don’t. They just come
for casualty evacuation missions only.

Belesqoqani
does not have an airstrip. We have to travel all the way to Garissa. Well, all
troops to and fro Somalia travel by road through Garissa, save for those who go
to Kismayo and Mogadishu. It is the roads that are riskier—al-Shabaab ambushes
and IEDs everywhere.

We arrive in
Garissa at around 1500hrs. The town hasn’t changed. We go to the camp, but I
leave immediately after. I want to extol the virtues of drinking and the warmth
between the glorious thighs of Somali women.

DRC Club is the
home of soldiers in Garissa. With the soldiers coming from Somalia, loaded with
AMISOM dollars, it is full. All the good Somali women are few now, women have
flocked to Garissa from the neighbouring Kitui County—from Mwingi to Thika—for
the dollar rush.

I throw money
around like a drug lord, spent it like it don’t mean anything. I am generous
with the ladies, and one of them tells me she doesn’t like her work. She would
love to be a housewife; what I hear instead is she would like to have a house.

I get back to
the camp long after midnight, at unnerving three o’clock in the morning. I can
barely walk, and I am bleeding. I have received quite a beating: the bouncers
were not merciful on me for beating one of the women. Njeri was her name. The
bitch wanted to spike my drink. Well, for someone who has spotted al-Shabaab
from hundreds of metres I couldn’t let mchele
take me down.

The Guard Commander
at the gate throws me into the guardroom, pours water on the floor, and locks
me in. When I come to, my OC is towering above me. He is livid, and rightly so,
but he can’t leave me behind.

I hastily get
ready and join the others. Our journey to Nairobi continues. Today we’re
painting the city red.

When we get to
Embakasi, I defy the OC’s directive not to leave the camp without cleaning the
weapons and returning them to the store. I can’t wait to see my fiancée.

It is not hard
to dodge the Company Sergeant Major. After all, I have bribed him severally to
look the other way when my conduct was unbecoming.

My house at
Nyayo Estate is out of place, dusty. The
bitch hasn’t come here? I sit on the bed and think about the next twelve
hours. Later, I go to Tuskys and buy takeaway food—chips, chicken, and yoghurt.

I’m ready.

Love killed me: I look at the
note I have written, signed Patrick. But on second thought I decide not to
leave any.

Long after
midnight, I unpack my rucksack. I take the binoculars that I borrowed from the
Platoon Commander’s runner. I switch off the lights and walk to the window.
Most apartments in the third floor of the block opposite mine are off, but the
one I want are still on. I can see silhouettes moving, but the
night-vision-enabled binoculars will show me everything.

I see everything,
for thirty minutes. She’s always been
wild in bed. As though to tell me they are just getting started, my fiancée
turns around, lifting her tight ass up to him. He enters her from behind.

So far they
have done it in all styles and positions. I seethe with anger: towards him for
reaping where he did not sow, and her for taking me for a fool—for fuck’s sake,
I refused to pay for my sisters’ school fees so I could pay hers. I can’t take
it anymore, and I want to teach them the error of their ways.

I check the
belted ammo I had packed while leaving Somalia: 6,000 rounds. My beloved Negev
Light Machine Gun has never failed me, and I have a night vision telescopic
sight. I won’t miss!

I open the
window and place the gun at an angle. I look through the telescopic sight and
all I want is to end my misery. I synchronize with his thrusts and fire. A
burst. Blood jets from his neck, though I can’t see the rivulets with the scope.

I see them go
down. They couldn’t all be dead, but I want to make sure they stay down,
forever. I aim and traverse the gun in the room, on the two lumps I assume to
be them on the bed. And I don’t stop. Even if I won’t get them, ricochets will.
I can see the door out of the bedroom, it is still closed, now riddled with
bullet holes; if any of them survives I won’t let them get to the door.

A wave of
adrenaline passes through me, I ain’t letting go of the trigger. The pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop! of the
gun is not stopping. It’s like it has what we call ‘gun runaway’.

I’m so
engrossed that I don’t notice the police armoured personnel carriers arrive, and
the police taking position in the parking lot. A moment later a hail of bullets
hit my window. Soldier instinct kicks in and I turn the gun on them.

www.fichuzi.com

At this time
the adamantine faith to control my own fate is a conceited deceit. If I ain’t mistaken, I have seen army
trucks arriving after the police.

If I must die, I won’t die alone. The barrel of
the gun is red hot, but there is no spare. I
must fight to the end.

In the
battlefield you’re told not to focus on the front and forget your rear. That’s
the mistake I made. An explosion goes off at my door and, before I act, the
dreaded Recce Company commandos barge in.

I turn and face
them. I expect some kind of telepathic communication, to let them know that I
am one of them, to share my pain with them, but their portent eyes say it
all—their orders are to shoot to kill.

I want to
scream ‘Allahu Akbar!’, but I don’t
want to die a terrorist. I’m a soldier.
Soldiers don’t surrender.

I raise the
gun, but I realize I can’t kill myself with a machine gun. Instead, one of the
Recce boys does it for me.

I fall into a
dark, bottomless pit, but what I see is Marya’s face and us kissing in the
moonlight.

Friday, March 3, 2017

I have never
stopped berating God for plonking me in the middle of humanity as the only
child. You may think it is a blessing, but, when all is said and done, it’s a curse.

I look at my
mother with contempt. Her face is as withered as a flower left to waste, her
face clothed in wisps of white hair she has refused to conceal in those
horrendous weaves women don. To my eyes she represents everything I loath.

“You have other
children, you know,” I tell her.

“A male child
is the beacon of the family,” she says.

“A child is a
child …”

“Your father
would be disappointed with you.”

“Not as much as
I was with him.”

There is no
memory of my father that flashes in my mind. The old geezer dropped dead, literally,
on his way from work the day I was born. But
he had it coming, Mother told me when I was old enough to understand. It was the alcohol. He didn’t even see
me!

“How do you
expect me to go and live in my daughter’s house? The ways of our people don’t
…”

“Suppose I was
not born.”

“But you were.”

“Mom, you’ve got
to go live with one of them: Mueni, Kasyoka, or Mwende …”

“Over my dead
body.”

I steal a
glance at her. She is just another woman beaten down by old age. Her porcelain
face has withered, her skin a frail layer, thanks to stressful migraines. To
her I am a soul lost to the shadows.

“Why should I
be the only one to take care of you? My sisters …”

“Your sisters
have their own homes, husbands. Our culture doesn’t allow us to go live in our
daughter’s husband’s houses. Did you see my mother, your grandmother, coming to
live here? She did not even spent a single night here.”

Flashes of her making
friends with the other ‘inmates’, some toothless and blind, go on in my mind.

“What do you
expect me to do? I have to work.”

“Why do you
think God gave me you only, no any other son?”

Questioning God
is not something I do over breakfast, so I say nothing.

“A son takes
care of his parents in their old age, perpetuates the family. Girls are married
off, they find other families, but a son takes care of his parents and buries
them.”

I feel like
punching the air.

“I asked ‘what
do you expect me to do?’ We’re going to Somalia in three days. You don’t want
to go stay with Mueni, or Kasyoka, or Mwende.”

“You should
have married a long time ago …”

Not marriage
again, I want to scream.

I scroll
through my phone while she goes on and on.

I want to tell
her that I have impregnated my Platoon Sergeant’s daughter, the one who did her
KCPE last year; that my ex faked DNA tests and came to the camp with a letter
from the Children’s Court and the CO didn’t listen to me when he wrote a letter
to DOD and told them to be deducting my salary from the source to pay for ‘my
child’s’ support.

“And have my
wife living in my mother’s house?”

“All this is
yours. I don’t need it. My time is almost over. She will live here …”

Marriage is the
last thing on my mind. Half my salary is going to that conniving bitch who is
stealing my money. Ati child support!
The other half is going to the Platoon Sergeant’s daughter. I hope she will
flush it, as we agreed, otherwise her father will take me to court for
defilement if he doesn’t kill me in Somalia and blame it on the enemy.

I have made up
my mind. I want, no, I need, to go Somalia. African Union allowance is a tidy
sum, not to be sniffed at. I will be away from all the madness. I might as well
die over there and not worry of that gold-digger.

“Then I will
take you to Nyumba ya Wazee …”

“What?” she
screams. She shuffles her unruly hair, throws her hands up, and begins to wail.
“In all my life I never thought you would insult me that way.”

“How have I
insulted you?” But she doesn’t hear me. She is hysterical.

“Did I take you
to a children’s home when you were born? I took care of you, nursed you.”

“It’s not like
that …”

“Don’t tell me
what it is like. Now you don’t value me, your mother. You want to stash me in a
home for the elderly, suppose I took you to a children’s home, where would you
be today.”

She is almost
going berserk, and for an instant I fear she will drop dead, like her husband.

I don’t know
what to do, what to say. Instead of calming her, I recoil and watch her. If I feel I’m not going to get out, I
remind myself. I want to live free, happy, not a normal life. If you’re not there life will move on, I
affirm to myself. She will take care of herself.

When I stand to
go, the first step is the hardest, but I take it. All I am thinking is I want
to get myself out of the curse of being her ‘only child’. My spirit is bubbling
from deep inside. It is that liberating. I will go and forget I had an elderly
mother. I won’t look back, I decide. Even when, and if, she realizes that
daughters too are children who can take care of their parents, I won’t come
back, I tell myself. I am getting away from the curse, taking back my life.